Complete video- East Middle School Choir Concert

Slide show features memories from EMS production of "Beauty and the Beast"

The following slide show, provided courtesy of Jet HD, features some memories from last month's East Middle School production of Beauty and the Beast.

East Middle School Choir Concert

Signing for Scars from the Tornado set for Saturday at Vintage Stock on the Mall

After a delay of more than a year, the first signing for Scars from the Tornado: One Year at Joplin East Middle School is scheduled for 12 noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at Vintage Stock on the Mall.

The book details my experiences and East Middle School students' experiences during the May 22, 2011, Joplin Tornado, and during the first year attending a warehouse school.

Some of those students will be at the signing Saturday.

Following is a breakdown of what is included in Scars from the Tornado:

Foreword- This features a story that a former East student, Joplin High School sophomore Rylee Hartwell, wrote about the school shortly after the tornado.

A Teacher's Story- Over several chapters, I write about the last day at East before the tornado hit, the tornado and my first trip back to the school, the meeting at Missouri Southern where Principal Bud Sexson outlined what the warehouse school was going to be like, our return to school, the first day and much more.

Tornado Stories- This section features the students recounting their tornado stories. Some were right in the middle of it. Others feared for their friends. It affected all of them. Students with stories in this section include Jennifer Nguyen, Nick Shellenbarger, Abi Killinger, Alexandra Stelts, Donna Tomlinson, Maggie Baker, Cami Sanders, Kaley Moser, Amber Fleming, Desirae Orlaski, Taylor Robinson, Keisha Grunden, Courtney Hunt, Victoria Stehm, Garrett Severs,  and Ryan Ball.

The School Year- This section features stories from the students about our year in the warehouse, with some commenting about the school. Those contributing stories include Sarah Peterson, Megan Hickey, Amy Koch, Jennifer Nguyen, Annie Strickling, Stella Ndauwa, and Melinda Adams. Megan, Amy, and Jennifer contributed multiple stories in this section.

Parting Shots- This section includes a longer story that I wrote about the people from around the world who let us know that we were not alone in our battle. My story centers around our 86-year-old penpal from Santa Barbara who has come to mean a lot to my students both last year and this year. The section also has shorter comments from Cara Marshall, Jimmie Willerton, Audrey Kanan, Taelor Stone, Logan Whitehead, Amelia Street, and Madison Meinhardt.

Tornado Poems- Among those contributing to this section are students Mykah Campbell, Michaela West, Sean Harrison, Ashton McGehee, Karly Weber, Jacy Welch, Mackenzie Gunderson, Bridget Ingham, Jerry Bland, Joseph Fry, Beth Dulinsky, and teacher Kathy Weaver.

The book also includes a photo section.

Copies of 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado, and No Child Left Alive will also be available.

Complete video of East Middle School ribbon cutting

From Jet 14

Video- FEMA official speaks at East Middle School ribbon cutting

Sexson to students on opening of East: I'm so glad you're here

The opening assembly at the new East Middle School was featured in an article in today's Kansas City Star:

On the other side of the campus, East’s boisterous middle schoolers were called to order in the school’s gymnasium.

“Duty! Honor!” Assistant Principal Jason Weaver shouted. And the students shouted back the rest of the school’s code — “Peace and pride!”

“Ladies and gentlemen of East Middle School,” Weaver sang out, “welcome to your new building!”

After a roaring chorus of cheers, and then a rundown of first-day logistics, the students herded behind their teachers to their classes — except for the eighth-graders.

Principal Bud Sexson gathered them first on the school’s “Learning Stair” — a wide staircase that doubles as a gathering spot, big enough to seat all of the 250 children per grade level, and ideal for a class photo.

There is a reason the builders rushed to turn out a 24-month job in 16 months.

“It was more important to get you in here,” Sexson told the eighth-graders. “This is an incredible opportunity for you. You get to spend at least one semester in this place. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/09/4740361/joplins-new-schools-arise-as-palaces.html#storylink=cpy

EMS students buy toys for underprivileged children

(From Joplin Schools)

On Thursday, Dec. 19, students at East Middle School made a Christmas presentation to area fire departments. Members of the East Middle School Student Council purchased toys for underprivileged children in the Joplin area. They delivered the toys to the fire department members for their annual distribution. EMS Student Council member Ethan Vang formally handed the toys over to Mr. Branham of the Joplin Fire Department during an assembly in front of the student body.

This year's purchases amounted to $1,043 plus some additional toy donations by individuals. The student council raised the money through candy sales and sponsoring a Halloween dance. Over the past 15 years, more than $15,000 has been raised by East students for this project.

New East Middle School featured in USA Today

The new East Middle School, as well as Soaring Heights and Irving elementary schools are spotlighted in USA Today:

"It's one more step toward returning to normalcy," said Jeff Koch, 40.

Two of Koch's four kids will be attending East Middle School when the school officially opens next month.

Koch was touring the new digs Monday night as part of an open house for the near-completed school.


"For almost three years, everything was temporary -- it was always temporary," Koch said.

"Here is a place they can have memories."

From December 2012: JEMS Show Choir performs at benefit talent show

Between now and Christmas, I am going to spotlight Christmas stories and videos from previous years on the East Middle School Roundabout and Room 210 News sites. The first one features the JEMS Show Choir, under the direction of Ms. Julie Yonkers performing at a benefit talent show in the EMS commons area.

First signing for Scars from the Tornado canceled

The long-awaited first signing for Scars from the Tornado: One Year at Joplin East Middle School, is going to have wait a little longer.

I called Jeff Auckerman, book manager at Vintage Stock on the Mall a few minutes ago and canceled the event, which had been scheduled for Saturday afternoon. I will reschedule sometime after Christmas.

The book, which details former East Middle School students' tornado experiences and our first year in a warehouse school, features essays by students and by me and student poems.

Scars was published in March, but due to the problems Joplin R-8 school officials had with the book, which have been written about on this blog numerous times, it and the wonderful writing done by these young people never received the attention it deserved.

For those who do not yet have a copy of the book, it is available locally at Vintage Stock on the Mall, Always Buying Books, and Changing Hands Book Shoppe in Joplin, and at Pat's Books in Carthage. Amazon has them on sale at the moment for $8.60.

From Spirit of Hope: The 2012 Joplin High School graduation

(In this sample chapter from Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado, I write about the 2012 Joplin High School Graduation ceremony with the emphasis on Sarah Kessler, a graduate and one of my former students, who lost her home during the May 22, 2011, tornado. Spirit of Hope is available in e-book format for 99 cents now through 10 a.m. Monday.)

The smile never vanished from Sarah Kessler’s face as she listened to the names of one student after another being called onstage to receive their diplomas.

It takes a while to go through 431 names. Fortunately for Sarah, her name was closer to the beginning of the alphabet so she would have to stand in line for much less time than some of her classmates.

It had been an exciting evening for the tall, slender (“I’m a beanpole,” she says) senior. About an hour and a half earlier she had been in a room with the President of the United States. It was not her voice that said, “Oh, my God, the leader of the free world,”-that was a classmate- but she could understand the awe.

The Joplin High School Class of 2012 listened to seemingly endless speeches- from High School Principal Kerry Sachetta, Superintendent C. J. Huff, Gov. Jay Nixon, and yes, from President Barack Obama “the leader of the free world,” in a ceremony that started a few minutes late.

All of the speakers had praised Sarah and her classmates. “You are an inspiration,” the president had said, but somehow Sarah did not feel like an inspiration. As she waited, she thought back over the past year, the path that led her from the most horrifying moments of her life, some spent in this same building, the Leggett & Platt Center on the Missouri Southern State University campus, to where she was today, a few moments from receiving her diploma- her ticket into adulthood.

It still brought a shudder to her every time she thought about the events of May 22, 2011.

That weekend had been a big one for the Kessler family. A day earlier, the wedding of Sarah’s older sister, Kate, had taken place. Sarah and her brother, Will, had provided music for the occasion- Sarah on her beloved violin, Will on guitar.

“My entire family was in town,” Sarah recalled. The family stayed for another big event the next day, Will Kessler’s graduation with the Joplin High School Class of 2011.

The family watched with pride as Will received his diploma, had pictures taken afterward, and then Will left. “He had a party he was going to, so he left before the rest of us,” Sarah said. It was shortly after Will left that the tornado siren sounded.

As the rest of the Kessler family was about to leave, a security guard stopped them. “He told us we had to go to the basement. We didn’t have a choice. We were all wanting to leave.”

The guard escorted the family to the locker room area with five or six other families to wait out the storm. “We were down there for a quite a while,” Sarah said. It was there that they received word that Home Depot had been hit. “That’s when we started to get nervous about my brother because we live a block from the high school. One of the easiest ways to get from the college to my house was down 20^th.”

Scaring the Kesslers even more was their inability to contact Will. There was no phone coverage in the locker room. “That was the scariest 30 minutes in my life, not knowing where my brother was, or even if he was still alive.”

Finally, they were able to contact Will. He had been driving through the heart of the storm. “He said he prayed the whole time he was in the car. He just got a new car and he is a good driver. Thank God for both of those things. He said was dodging flying cars, flying trees,” Sarah lowered her voice, “flying people.”

Will Kessler ended up at a church at 26^th and Connecticut.

Now that they knew Will was all right, the family piled into two cars to head toward their home, which they now knew had been in the path of the tornado.

“We went down Rangeline, but that wasn’t going to happen. It was mass chaos everywhere, so we drove down side streets. It was terrifying; the closer we got to home, the worse the destruction. We wondered if home was going to be there.”

As what would normally be a 15-minute trip had already taken more than a half hour, Sarah’s dad received a call from Will.

“Where are you?” her father asked.

“Home.”

“Do we have a home left?”

“Sort of.”

Still seven blocks from home, Sarah’s dad stopped the car, jumped out and began walking. Sarah’s cousin took the wheel. After what seemed an eternity, Sarah was close enough to see her house.

“I will never be able to forget that. We were on Indiana and I can remember driving up to 20^th Street. I could see clear to the hospital. There was nothing there. I saw the school, then I looked slightly to the left. Our house was built a little better than the ones around us. It was the least damaged. The lower level was still standing. You could see a part of the upper story where my brother’s room was.”

The first words she said when she saw what was left of her home will be forever burned into her memory. “I remember looking at it, crying, and saying to my cousin, ‘That’s my house. That’s my house.’ All I could think was it was gone.”

At that point, Sarah got out of the car, stepping over downed power lines, walking between cars. “I walked the path between the school and my house, the same as I had done every day since my freshman year.”

She spotted Will and ran to him, hugging him. The two stood crying. They checked on neighbors to make sure they were all right and then went into their house to see what had survived.

Much of the family’s irreplaceable sentimental items, including photo albums and papers, were unharmed since they were under their parents’ bed in the lower level. “We were able to salvage quite a bit,” Sarah said. “We were fortunate.”

And the one possession that Sarah cherished above all others- her violin- was also undamaged, as was her brother’s guitar. “We had played my sister down the aisle at the wedding and when we got home, we left the instruments downstairs in the hallway.”  Had they taken the instruments upstairs where they were normally kept, they would have been swept away.

“That was about the only happy thing that happened that night. I love playing the violin. It has always been special to me.”

For the next few weeks after the tornado, Sarah and her family stayed with Matt Proctor, president of Ozark Christian College, his wife, Katie, and their six children. Some of the time Sarah stayed with Rebecca McMillin, her best friend since kindergarten.

The Kessler family lost some of its animals, but “we found two of our rabbits and two of our cats.” The family also had two dogs, Hank, a yellow lab, and Rusty, a golden retriever.

After a few days, Rebecca McMillin talked Sarah into going to the Humane Society to see if her dogs were there. “I didn’t want to go. I was afraid I wouldn’t find them.” When they walked into the building with the dogs, “I saw Rusty right off the bat. I went up to the cage and he started barking.” When he was released, he ran into Sarah. “Basically, he almost knocked me over. It was so good to see him.”

Sarah was never able to find Hank.

A new home had to be found for Rusty after the Kesslers moved into an apartment, where they would have to stay for quite a while before their house could be rebuilt.

In the days following the tornado, many friends helped the Kessler family through its ordeal, including some they had never met before. “The people from our church (Central City Christian Church) were there for us. They helped us with our house and helped us move into our apartment.”

The summer was a blur for Sarah. After a couple of weeks dealing with the aftermath of the worst night of her life, Sarah had an opportunity to get away from it all for a short time, as she traveled with Ozark Christian College’s Highest Praise Choir, playing her violin. “It was nice to get away,” she said. “It was such an encouraging environment.”

When she returned, it was not to the home she had known for her whole life, but to a place she had never seen before. “I didn’t quite have a room. My room was full of boxes, so I stayed on the couch in the living room for a while, but that was okay. It took us quite a while to get everything put in its place. It was mass chaos.”

It was also not the home she knew. “We had just remodeled our house, spent the last two or three months before the tornado just totally redoing it. We had a beautiful new deck. I told everyone that next year, we would have to have all of our study parties at my house.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

Sarah threw herself into volunteer work, helping Forest Park Baptist Church’s Mission Joplin. Sarah’s plans to spend her summer looking for colleges were tossed aside. That would have to wait.

Before she knew it, it was time for her senior year of high school to begin, not at the historic building she could walk to every morning, but in a box store at Northpark Mall. “I thought it would be poorly put together. When school actually started, it was so much better than I could have possibly imagined. It’s not the best, obviously, because it is not a permanent facility, but it worked.”

Sarah will never forget the first day of school at Northpark Mall. “It was all hugs and laughter and smiles. Even with people you barely knew, it was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. I know you. You’re alive.’ “

That spirit continued throughout the school year. “The student body seemed to be closer. There is something that links us all together.”

As the school year passed, there were many positive moments such as using another tornado survivor, her violin, to earn a I rating at state and being a part of the Prom Court. “That was something totally unexpected.” Her fourth year as a member of Key Club, a service organization, was also a highlight. Sarah was lieutenant governor on the Missouri/Arkansas Board.

And while she didn’t have a deck for study parties, she had something even better. “We have a roof at our apartment,” she said. “The other night my dad and I had a candlelight dinner of beans and weenies on our roof.”

Even though the Kessler family will soon move back into a house, Sarah confided, “I kind of like our little apartment. We all secretly kind of like it.”

The experience of living through the tornado has helped strengthen Sarah Kessler’s faith. “I’m a Christian. I’m very proud of that. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is to trust in Him no matter what. No matter what the situation is, He will take care of you.”

God helped provide for her family, Sarah said, with everything from saving her brother Will the day of the tornado to helping them to cope with the aftermath of the storm.

“I went through, maybe not quite depression, but I wasn’t my normal, bouncy self for a while,” Sarah said. “When that happened, I needed to reconnect with Him. I learned that the more I make an effort in my relationship with God, the more joyful and hopeful I was, the more content I was.”

By this time, Sarah had moved to near the front of the line. In a few moments, her name would be called and she would leave Joplin High School forever. The next stop for Sarah will be Missouri State University in Springfield where she will study music education.

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher since I was little. I like helping other people learn and I have a lot of patience. Teaching comes naturally to me.”

“Sarah Kessler.”

A smile spread across her face and there was a spring in her walk as she stepped forward to receive her diploma. She turned to her family in the audience and smiled, then she took a brief moment to give thanks.

The path to graduation had not been an easy one for Sarah Kessler, but the moment had arrived and she knew this was never something she could have done alone.

“One big lesson I have learned this year is that even when you can’t feel God’s presence, that doesn’t mean He’s not there. God has promised us he will never leave us.”

This time, Sarah felt His presence.

First signing for Scars from the Tornado set for December 7 at Vintage Stock on the Mall

It certainly has taken long enough, but the first signing for Scars from the Tornado: One Year at Joplin East Middle School has been set for 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, December 7, at Vintage Stock on the Mall.

Scars features stories that I wrote about my experiences during our first year in the warehouse school, as well as stories and poems written by my students.

I will be contacting people who contributed to the book, so that they can have the experience of being involved in a book signing.

Copies of 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, Spirit of Hope, and No Child Left Alivewill also be available.

More information about the book will be provided in coming posts.

Video: East Middle School Awards Assembly

MSSU student Taylor Camden speaks to eighth graders

Taking the photo

As we continue catching up on videos, this one comes from the Christmas Dance, when drama teacher Ms. Lara Stamper was roped into taking photos.

EMS Color Guard performs at pep rally

As we continue to catch up on videos that have not been available due to technical difficulties, here is the Color Guard, under the direction of Ms. Lara Stamper performing at the winter sports pep rally last month.

JEMS Show Choir performs at Benefit Show

Another one that has been a while in coming. In this video, the JEMS Show Choir, under the direction of Ms. Julie Yonkers, performs at the Dec. 1 benefit show to raise money for toys for the Joplin Fire Department's annual Christmas for Kids program.

EMS students contribute to Joplin Christmas for Kids, Sandy Hook Elementary

Because of technical problems, we are just now able to get some videos from earlier in the school year posted. In this one, taken the week before Christmas vacation, EMS students learn at an assembly that they raised more than $1,400 for the Joplin Fire Department's Christmas for Kids program and they were challenged to raise money to help Sandy Hook Elementary School Family Fund. That challenge resulted in a couple of hundred dollars being sent to Newtown, Conn.

JHS students talk to eighth graders

This panel discussion, which features Joplin High School students talking to EMS eighth graders was held the last day before Christmas break.